


What Happens When Hawkeyes Assume

by fabrega



Category: Marvel (Comics), Young Avengers
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2014-08-01
Packaged: 2018-02-11 04:08:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2052987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabrega/pseuds/fabrega
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate's made a lot more assumptions about America than she'd thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Happens When Hawkeyes Assume

America lifted her foot to bust them an exit from the universe where they'd been celebrating the end of the old year and the start of the new, and Kate felt like she'd been suddenly transported back to seventh grade--well, okay, not _literally_ transported, because America's thing was universes, not time travel, and while they'd certainly been through weirder places than Kate's boarding school, she wasn't sure she'd want the rest of them there with her. In her very vivid memory, Kate was staring at a tiny, uniformed version of herself, who was in turn staring at her seventh grade English teacher, Ms. Fischer. The teacher was correcting a student (not Kate, never Kate); her back was turned slightly to the class as she wrote six big letters in chalk across the board.

"Now, Remington," Ms. Fischer said, and her voice was a little unkind (but, Kate remembered, so was Remington), "What you've done is made an incorrect assumption about what kind of behavior is welcome in this classroom. Do you know what happens when we assume?"

Kate did not remember the snide remark that Remington made to Ms. Fischer, but her memory was crystal clear on Ms. Fischer's reply. Taking the chalk, the teacher underlined the letters she'd written on the board and said, "When you _assume_ , you make an _ASS_ of _U_ and _ME_."

(Kate had repeated that back to her father when she was home at the winter break, because he _had_ been acting like an ass at the time. He'd demanded to know where she'd learned such language, and later she'd heard him on the phone with the boarding school's headmistress. Ms. Fischer was no longer teaching there when break was over.)

And then she was back outside the party, staring at America.

She wasn't sure why she'd assumed America was straight. Maybe it was the way America and Loki had bickered, like the characters in the fanfic Loki had liked to read aloud to them on Noh-Varr's ship, the ones who hated each other but were always just three paragraphs away from smooches. Or maybe it was how weird she acted around Billy, which she'd always managed to avoid explaining. Or maybe it was how, when they fought the Evil Exes in the Mother's dimension, America's ex had been some hero dude Kate had never heard of. It was an assumption that had certainly made sense.

Then again, she hadn't known David was bi until he had told her, or more correctly, until he'd cornered her and told her about kissing Teddy (which Kate hadn't really wanted to hear about, but she had understood that there was literally no one else in the group who could provide a sympathetic, adult ear for his problems). And Noh-Varr being willing to kiss anyone--that was another assumption she hadn't known she'd been holding onto, but in retrospect, neither the assumption nor the truth were much of a surprise.

Kate pondered this as America shattered a hole in the universe and took them all to breakfast. They came out the other side of the star-shaped portal at "their" diner, the one where David had tracked them down, the one they'd criss-crossed universes to always get back to. It was a little strange, without Loki there, but they rearranged themselves around the space where he should have been, no one acknowledging his absence. Besides, it wasn't the only adjustment they made: Tommy was back, and Kate wanted nothing to do with Noh-Varr, so they all shuffled around a little bit: Teddy, Billy, David, Noh-Varr, Tommy, Kate, and America. They didn't talk much; Kate grinned at the others (new years! fruit juice! breakfast! home!) and moved her eggs around on her plate and tried not to notice her feet bumping up against America's under the table.

She leaned into Tommy a little and wasn't proud of it.

It was just starting to get light out when they finally left the diner. Outside, they smiled at each other and paused awkwardly--they'd been together, as a group, as a team, for so long that this point, the parting-for-good, seemed almost momentous--and then they moved to go their separate ways. Billy and Teddy vanished in a blue haze of teleportation; Tommy offered David a ride home, which, in Tommy-speak, meant "carrying you there very quickly"; and Noh-Varr was gone before anyone actually noticed him leaving.

This left Kate alone with America.

"Where are you headed?" America asked. With all of the modes of transportation the team provided (Noh-Varr had a freaking _spaceship_ ) Kate had not expected to need to get dropped off by Miss America Chavez one last time.

"Where are _you_ \--" Kate began, before abruptly thinking better of it and cutting herself off. She'd always kind of assumed America had a place, somewhere she could go back to here on Earth-Earth like the rest of them, but America punched holes in the multiverse, so that might not have been the case. She _had_ just sort of dropped into their lives from someplace else; Loki had mentioned meeting her at that Korean BBQ place that was definitely not in Kate's New York.

Kate paused, gathered her thoughts, and tried again. "I've got a spare room at my apartment, if you'd like." That was not what she had meant to say _at all_.

"If I'd like what?"

Kate breezed past America's question. "Or I've got a key to Clint's place, if you want to sneak into an Avenger's apartment and, I dunno, raid his fridge or something. I should probably go over there anyway; I've been away for how many months now? His poor _dog_ \--" She dug around in her clutch for her keys, to double-check that she still had a key to Clint's place, how was it possible to lose anything in a bag this small?!

"You do not have to go to an Avenger's apartment at five in the morning to check on his dog. He's an Avenger. He can manage to take care of one dog by himself for a little bit."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you, but you don't know Clint. Guy's kind of a disaster." She wasn't finding her keys, and she was getting more and more flustered, and--

"Kate." She looked up at the sound of America's voice and the touch of her hand on Kate's arm. "Let's get you home, princess."

(Which, Kate realized as they emerged from a portal outside her apartment building, was a pretty sneaky way to get to Kate's apartment without ever actually acknowledging that that was what you were doing, _America_.)

Kate had found her keys by the time they made it up to her apartment, and she was in the door with her heels off without even thinking. America paused in the hallway; it might have been the first time Kate had ever seen her be anything but forceful and decisive about anything. It shook her a little bit, because she'd always assumed that America knew exactly where she was headed in the world.

Rather than let America stand in the hallway and possibly leave, Kate dragged her inside the apartment and practically shoved her into the spare room. Then Kate panicked ( _more_ , okay, she panicked _more_ ) and slammed the door between them, because _what was she doing_. She stared at the door in horror and wondered if she should open it up again or if that would be weirder.

There was a pause, and then America's wry voice came from the other side of the door. "Why yes, Kate, I _am_ tired, staying in your spare room sounds great. Thanks for asking!"

Well, now Kate _definitely_ wouldn't be the one to open the door, because she was too busy dying of embarrassment. Maybe coming back to New York had been a bad idea; she'd been away for so long that it no longer required direct proximity to Clint Barton for his patented Hawkeye Bad Life Choices to start taking effect.

"You know I can just punch my way out of here, right? In at least two senses," America said.

"Yep!" Kate replied, and her voice sounded terrifyingly cheerful in her own ears.

There was a pause. "Okay," America said. "Just making sure." There was another pause, this one uncomfortably silent in comparison to the sounds of shattering universes Kate expected to hear. "What exactly was your plan here?"

_At least she sounds amused_ , Kate thought. "To make an ass of myself, I think." She finally twisted the doorknob, following the door as it swung open into the spare room. She half-expected to get a faceful of fist, which she would _entirely deserve_ , but instead America was seated on the edge of the spare bed, her fingers curled down around the edge of the mattress, her feet dangling and swinging aimlessly.

"You're still here," Kate said. "I thought you might've left."

"What, and miss the look on your face when you finally decided to come in here? Never." America smirked at her.

Kate hopped up on the bed beside America and flopped down on her back; America twisted around at the waist to face her. "So, did you have a good new year's eve?" America asked, and maybe Kate was imagining things, but it seemed like America's smirk softened a little.

Kate thought for a second, then nodded. She'd danced, she'd drank some fruit juice, she'd _killed_ in her fancy dress, she'd told off Noh-Varr, and then Tommy, the friend they'd spent months traipsing through the multiverse to find, had just magically appeared, so yeah, it had been a pretty good evening.

"Kiss anybody good at midnight?" America teased.

Kate threw an arm over her eyes. "You know how, sometimes you kiss somebody for reasons that aren't so good?"

"Noh-Varr?" America asked from somewhere beyond Kate's arm.

Kate grimaced. "Tommy." She looked up at America, expecting some kind of judgment that didn't seem to be coming. She didn't really want to have to explain her History of Bad Decisions about Tommy Shepherd, so instead she asked, "How about you? Any midnight smooches for Miss America?"

America shook her head. "Has kissing ever brought a superhero anything but trouble?"

"It saved the world once," Kate reminded her, because that fact was suddenly very important to her.

"Billy and Teddy saved the world once with kissing, okay," America conceded, "But the rest of the time?"

Kate thought back over her time with the Young Avengers and almost had to agree. "Yeah," she said, trying to keep her voice light, "I should probably give up on kissing boys for a while."

America's eyes sparkled and she laughed.

"So...now what?" Kate asked, and she wasn't quite sure what she was asking about: their evening that had turned into morning, or the Young Avengers, or them right now, Kate and America.

"Now is probably time for a nap," America said, nudging Kate with her hip. "Out."

Kate groaned dramatically. "But I just got comfortable."

"Out," America repeated.

"Don't you want to stay up and talk about giiiiirls?" Kate offered, giggling. She was apparently a little more tired than she had thought. America was vertical and tugging at her in an attempt to move her off the bed. Kate went limp and tried to think heavy thoughts.

"I'll sleep in your bed if I have to, don't think that I won't," America threatened. "And I'm not the one with the billion dollar dress that I'm getting all wrinkly."

Kate sighed and rolled off the bed, landing ungracefully on the floor. Still, it was worth it when America grinned at her. And America had been right about naps: she shimmied out of her fancy dress and into a pair of comfy pajamas and curled up asleep almost immediately.

She woke up to the sound of her cell phone. A glance at the clock showed that her nap had lasted almost ten hours; a glance at her phone showed that the call was from her fellow Hawkeye-in-crime, Clint. She picked it up and mumbled half a hello into the receiver.

"Katie-Kate! I hear you're finally back in town."

Kate sighed.

"Did I wake you up?" Clint sounded a little disapproving.

"Like you have any room to talk, lazy-ass. How long have you been up today?" Kate sniped back affectionately. "What do you want, Clint?"

"Thought maybe you'd want to come over, eat some pizza, catch up, maybe fill me in on who or what you were fighting that was too scary to ask for another Hawkeye's help with."

Kate started to agree automatically, but stopped up short. "Oh, crap, maybe? There might be someone in my apartment."

Clint was instantly on alert. "Do you have your bow handy? Do you need me to come rescue you?"

"No, no, not somebody dangerous," Kate said, waving him quieter with her free hand despite him not being able to see her. "It's...another Young Avenger." (And even that sounded weird, because was she really? She probably was. Nobody had asked her, Kate recalled, they'd all just assumed--) "Can she come for pizza too?" Clint made a thoughtful, interested noise, and Kate could almost hear the gears turning in his head. "No, no, it's not like that."

"Isn't it?"

Kate sighed and slumped back against her pillow. "You know what they say about what happens when you assume?"

"Uh, yeah, you make awesome life choices."

Kate scrubbed a hand over her face. "Look, I'll text you, okay?" She didn't wait for an answer before she hung up. Then, she took a deep breath and crept out of her room.

America was already awake, seated on the couch, watching TV. She glanced up at Kate's entrance and smirked. "Good morning, princess. Get your fill of beauty sleep?"

Kate yawned and stretched and made a face at America. "Make yourself at home."

"Oh, don't worry, I have." America put her feet up on the coffee table. "I like this place better than your dad's."

"Yeah, me too." Kate collapsed onto the sofa next to America. "So, uh." She kicked herself a little for being so eloquent. She was supposed to be basically a functioning adult, come _on_. "We've been invited out for pizza." When America said nothing, Kate continued quickly, "It's nothing fancy, probably just something from the place around the corner from Clint's apartment and we'll have to pick it up on our way over, but--"

"Why are you doing this?" America interrupted. It wasn't a new question for Kate; she'd been asking herself some variation of it for a while.

"Because... because I think I'm afraid you might leave." Kate realized it was true as she said it. "Because Billy is safe now and you left your last team and you can punch holes in the universe, so why would you stay?"

"Right? What possible reason could I have for staying?" She folded her arms at Kate (Kate had not realized that you could fold your arms _at_ somebody) and slouched angrily back into the sofa.

And it was entirely possible that Kate was reading this situation wrong too, she'd been batting zero on her assumptions about America in the last twenty-four hours, but she leaned forward and kissed her anyway. America didn't react immediately, but then she grabbed at Kate, one hand threading through her hair, the other landing somewhere in her torso region. Kate realized, somewhat belatedly, that she was still in her comfy, ratty pajamas, with mussed-up hair and a mouth that tasted like sleep. Smooth move, Hawkeye.

When she pulled away, America was staring at her coolly. "Is this another one of those times when you kiss somebody for not-so-good reasons?" she asked. She sounded detached and amused, and Kate could tell how much effort that was taking.

"God, I hope not," Kate said without thinking. She immediately put a hand up over her mouth.

America's face split into a grin. "Good, because I was going to stay anyway. Sometimes it's nice to stop running for a little while, and since I am definitely not welcome back at that barbecue place on Earth-212, this will have to do."

"Glad we're a good second choice for you," Kate said, grinning back.

America laughed and punched Kate in the arm. "C'mon, you said something about pizza?" she said as she rose and offered Kate a hand to help her off the sofa. Kate stood and didn't let go of America.

( _we are coming over for pizza,_ she texted Clint, _and you're right, it is like that_

_knew it_ , Clint texted back, _now who's made an ass of u and me_ )


End file.
